In a yard about 4 miles from the farm, my boyfriend and I have decided to raise chickens. He has a nice big yard and some serious skills when it comes to building things. I have always wanted chickens and was surprised when I found out that he also has always wanted chickens. The only reasonable thing to do was get some chickens. We have been collecting little pieces of advice for the last couple of weeks and turning to the internet when we get confused.
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| cozy little nesting boxes |
We started out deliberating over size and shape of the coop. I wanted a picture perfect, cute and cozy coop; my boyfriend wanted it very functional. We finally came up with a design that we both loved; Cute and cozy for me and easy to clean for him. My boyfriend had a lot of lumber and random materials laying around so we did not have to invest very much into the coop; it was pretty much a gallon of paint, chicken wire and some hinges. It was really fun watching our vision come to life.
We placed it in a semi shady area of the yard, chickens have a body temperature of 107 degrees so they like to stay cool.
A friends dad has been raising chickens for the last 6 years and was
willing to sell us a few; since we don't really know anything about
having chickens, we started with 6 established layers. After we picked up the chickens and saw the operation they had...we realized we had a few more things to do before the chickens could get in the coop. We needed a door, a light and radio in the coop, we needed to erect something they could roost on outside and most importantly some hay for the boxes.
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| Almost done. |
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| Good looking birds! |
And then we got our first egg!!!
In a yard about 4 miles from the farm, my boyfriend and I have decided to raise chickens. He has a nice big yard and some serious skills when it comes to building things. I have always wanted chickens and was surprised when I found out that he also has always wanted chickens. The only reasonable thing to do was get some chickens. We have been collecting little pieces of advice for the last couple of weeks and turning to the internet when we get confused. 
Hey Trish, will you raise chickens to eat or for the eggs, or both? Good luck! Brian
ReplyDeleteWe are raising chickens mainly for eggs...we will eventually use them for meat. We are actually thinking about getting three or four more chickens and then in November (when it starts getting really cold) we will harvest at least half so we don't have to feed them through the winter. It is nice now because most of the food they eat they find in the woods or in the yard.
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